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Metropolitan Government

Mayor Briley's inauguration as the first Mayor of Metro Nashville & Davidson County.

Metro at 50: The Creation of a Metropolitan Government

By Dr. Carole Bucy, Davidson County Historian

After World War II, Davidson County, Tennessee experienced dramatic growth as people began moving out of Nashville's older urban neighborhoods into new modern houses being rapidly built in new neighborhoods known as suburbs. The county's educational system attempted to keep up with the increased school-age population by building new schools in the suburbs, but it did not have the financial resources to provide other basic services, such as fire protection, sanitary sewers, or garbage collection. This population shift also created a financial challenge for Nashville's city government as its tax base began to erode. In addition, county residents enjoyed many city services such as the use of its public libraries and parks system without paying the city taxes which funded those services.

Beyond the problems caused by rapid growth, there was some overlapping of services by the city and the county. Elected officials and community leaders in both the city and county recognized that they needed to work together to solve these problems. After 20 years of lengthy debates over the best solution, the residents of the city of Nashville and Davidson County voted to consolidate their governmental functions into a completely new form of government now known as the Metropolitan Government of Nashville-Davidson County.